Oh Well – THE SPECTACLED BEAN

The Downside To Being Tidy: An Honest Mistake

In the photo above you’ll see what remains of a formerly square clear plastic drawer divider after it has been run through the electric dishwasher on the top rack.

I got it in my head to wash said formerly square clear plastic drawer divider because I was in the process of being tidy. I was cleaning out the junk drawer in the kitchen and the divider was dirty.

I tossed the drawer divider into the dishwasher without a second thought. It never dawned on me to find out if it was dishwasher safe.

It is not. Case in point.

Still, when I pulled the formerly square clear plastic drawer divider out of the dishwasher, I didn’t swear or berate myself for my mistake. Nope, no negative self-talk here.

Instead, channeling my late mellow mother, a history teacher with a quiet sense of humor, I said with a hat tip to President Harry Truman, this just goes to prove that:

“If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the dishwasher.”

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QUESTIONS OF THE DAY

Have you ever melted anything in the dishwasher?

What’s the last thing your good intentions accidentally destroyed?

Do you have a junk drawer?

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What The Sheriff Saw: A Story About Yours Truly Doing Her Gardening Chores

I want to tell you what happened. I didn’t quite understand what really happened as it happened and it was only after Zen-Den gently walked me to an epiphany that I got what happened.

• • •

THE OTHER MORNING AROUND 9:00 a.m. I decided to water the planters that are on the stoop in front of the house by the front door. I do this using an old Rubbermaid aqua-colored 2 1/4 quarts plastic pitcher whose white lid I lost decades ago.

As I was watering these planters I looked over in the bushes to where we have a medium-sized concrete urn that holds a spike plant. Because it’s been more dry around here than usual the poor spike looked droopy, so I got more water in my repurposed pitcher, now watering can, and stepped into our bushes in front of the windows in front of the house to water the thirsty plant.

I probably should add at this point that I was wearing Stewart plaid flannel jammies, a bright pink fleece jacket, dark teal suede house slippers, and had my curly mess of graying blonde hair pulled up, with a neon orange elastic band, into an off-kilter pineapple-style ponytail on top of my head.

Oh, and I was wearing dark glasses because it was sunny outside.

• • •

THERE’S BEEN A CHIPMUNK hanging around the front of the house all summer and as I was watering the spike I saw it scurry by me on its way to the other side of the front of the house. I do not like the damage that chipmunks can cause so I stopped watering and glared at the little rodent to see where it was going.

And, of course, I yelled a few random death threats at it.

As one does.

Suddenly I had a strange feeling and realized I was not alone. That out on the street in a large black SUV someone was watching me as I stood there.

And who was this person watching me? A sheriff who had happened to notice me as he was driving by. He’d rolled down his passenger side window to get a closer look at me and when I saw him, he waved.

I smiled and waved back while holding up my repurposed pitcher, then started pouring water into the concrete urn to show him I belonged where I was. I wasn’t a burglar hiding in the bushes, I was just the lady of the house doing a chore.

He smiled back, nodded his head, rolled up the window, and went on his way.

• • •

LATER THAT NIGHT I told Z-D what had happened and how funny I thought it was that a sheriff thought I was a miscreant attempting to break into our house.

As if.

Zen-Den listened to my story and conclusion, then quietly suggested that what the sheriff thought he saw probably didn’t register with him as a burglary in progress.

Instead from the sheriff’s perspective what he saw was an addlepated gray-haired senior citizen, perhaps suffering from dementia and jibber-jabbering to herself, wandering around in the bushes in her nightclothes, seemingly confused, while carrying a random kitchen item with her.

And darn it to heck, Zen-Den is right. That’s exactly what the sheriff saw.

One-Liner Wednesday: He Might Not Be A Bird’s Best Friend

Zen-Den and I were opening snail mail while standing at the kitchen counter. I’d received a calendar from the Audubon Society whose mission is “to protect birds and the places they need.”

I didn’t ask for this calendar, it was just there, mailed to me, specifically– like many calendars are this time of year. Z-D doesn’t get unsolicited calendars like I do, but me? I got choices.

2020 will not go unnoticed.

Anyhow, Z-D glanced over to see what I was looking at. He saw what I had in my hand and asked: “Are you a member of the Audubon Society?”

I said: “No. The calendar just came in the mail.”

He said: “Why?”

I said: “Because this is what happens in September. Unsolicited calendars appear like manna from heaven.”

He said: “What’s the calendar look like?”

I started to show him the Audubon calendar, holding up each page that features a different endangered bird. I thought he might like to see them.

However after three bird photos he cut me off saying:

“OK, I get it. You got a free calendar with pictures of birds not fat enough to eat. Lucky you.”

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*This is the brainchild of Linda G. Hill. Click on the badge to learn more & to connect with other bloggers who are doing #1LinerWeds this week.*

Rambling Thoughts That’ll Light No One’s Way, Yet Here They Are

THIS IS ONE OF THOSE LONG WEEKS when I’ve been doing things, but haven’t felt very good. My stomach kind of hurts, no specific reason. My ancient old knees hurt, no specific reason.

My head hurts, courtesy of seasonal allergies. My eyes are an itchy mess because of those same allergies. And I’ve been sneezing.

Sneezing so loudly, in fact, that while I was outside on the deck when I sneezed a neighbor, who I’ve never met, who lives on the other side of the forest primeval/ravine behind our house yelled “God bless you” towards me. I shouted “thank you” back across the forest primeval/ravine, thus ending the longest conversation I’ve ever had with any neighbor on the other side of the forest primeval/ravine.

• + • + •

AND THEY SAY THE SUBURBS ARE SOULLESS. Ha! We’re not soulless here, we just live far enough apart to not know each other personally while being midwestern polite to a fault. And aren’t good manners part and parcel of having a soul?

Me thinks so.

And on that note of profundity [?], I shall end this post. You know I try to be here at least once a week because I made a commitment to myself and to you, my gentle readers, to do so, thus I am here.

It would be bad manners to not show up.

However some weeks it takes all I’ve got just to find a photo [enhanced by Waterlogue app], plop it on this virtual page, and then write the words. In this case Muse is here with me, but my Energy Level isn’t up to snuff.

‘Ya know what I mean?

Plugging In: A Short Story Of Computer Angst & Good Intentions Gone Bad

AS YOU MAY RECALL when last we met I was distraught about what I believed to be the demise of my precious desktop computer, Cora.

However, I was wrong about Cora. Allow me to explain.

You see, Zen-Den decided to help me by unplugging my phone charger from my computer and instead plugging it into the surge protector strip that is on the floor behind the desk on which Cora sits.

He did this so that the round phone charger could sit on the desktop farther away from the round stone coaster on which I put my beverage whilst typing on Cora. There was concern, well-founded, that I’d accidentally, absent-mindedly use the round phone charger as my coaster, thereby ruining the charger.

Nice thought, good intentions.

• • •

THEN Z-D AMSCRAYED OFF to Colorado where he did Important Work Things leaving me with what seemed to be a dead computer sitting on the top of my desk. I, of course, did all the requisite things one does when one’s computer appears to have given up the ghost.

I double-checked that everything was plugged in. I banged on the keyboard. I checked the mouse battery. I turned the surge protector strip on and off.

I swore. I begged. I prayed.

And I texted Zen-Den who told me to do that which I’d already done, and that he’d look at Cora when he got back home at the end of the week.

Which he did.

But here’s the thing, when Z-D had added the phone charger plug to the surge protector strip, he moved all the plugs around on the strip to make them fit, not knowing there was a defective outlet on the strip.

Thus he inadvertently plugged Cora into an outlet that sent no electricity to her, so she did not work for me. However, when he repositioned her plug on the surge protector strip, she came to life. Like a miracle.

And there was joy in the land.

Huzzah, huzzah.

All of which brings me to the fact that I’m back to blogging, properly plugged in, happily engaging with Cora, and ready to share my own brand of flapdoodle & twaddle here.

Again.

Please Stand By

We are experiencing technical difficulties here at Chez Bean. My desktop computer, Cora, has stopped working & I’m writing this post on a laptop that I believe does not have my best interests at heart.

Thus, instead of fighting with a machine that makes me snarly, I’m going to bug out of the blogosphere [again], returning in a few weeks when I have a new desktop computer.

[Don’t judge. Desktop is my preferred style of machine. Yes, I know it’s old school, but so be it.]

In the meantime may I suggest that you take a gander at my blogroll and go visit some of those fine folks. They have good things to say. In fact while you’re there be sure to tell them that I say “hi!”

Honestly, if it’s not one thing around here it’s another…

Bibbidi, Bobbidi, Boo: Home Maintenance Happens, For A Price

I’m back, waving hello.

My late spring blogging hiatus is over. Because of the almost constant rain I [we?] didn’t accomplish everything I [we?] wanted to do, but I’ve researched that which has not been done and made plans about how to do it.

For me, a solutions girl, that’s a big deal.

So here’s what did happen: we got a new roof put on the house. And kids, that’s a noisy and messy thing to have happen. This is the third time in my life that I’ve had the pleasure of living in a house as a new roof is installed.

*bang, bang, bang*

Next time, should there be one, I’m going to a hotel for the duration. The 30 hours of noise involved in tearing off an old roof and then putting on a new roof made me anxious.

[Consider that the understatement of all time.]

• • •

But wait, there’s more.

Try to contain your excitement has I tell you about a few other homeowner things we did whilst I was not here.

Z-D and I rebuilt a stone wall around the base of a huge tree that is terrace-adjacent;
he painted the inside of the screened-in porch and got the screens replaced; and
we chatted with various sales wonks, then ordered new windows for the front of the house because the current wooden ones are rotting.

In other words, not to put too fine a point on it, we spent a boatload of money on necessary home maintenance projects that will improve our lives, but said projects do not immediately bring joy to my heart.

Like a long vacay in Hawaii would. Or a first class excursion to London. Or a train trip across Canada.

[All expensive, potentially joyful, adventures that I long to do.]

But that’s what happens when you have a house you consider your home– and you are responsible adults who lack a fairy godmother to magically, in an instant, transform and repair your house with the flick of her wand.

• • •

Question of the Day

So what’s new in your life? Anything magical? Tell me about it in the comments below. I feel so out of touch with everyone.

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